Provisional Confederate States Constitution - Key Points and Differences

Key Points and Differences

All committee members were well educated and had extensive legislative experience. Due to the necessity of a constitution, they worked considerably fast, reporting back to the convention on February 7. Copies were then made and distributed to convention members who spent relatively little time on debate. Their key changes to the committee’s draft was an inclusion of the phrase “Invoking the favor of Almighty God” into the preamble, the addition of an executive item veto, a removal of a congressional restriction of fifteen percent on import tariffs, and a combining of the circuit and district court systems into one district system where each state comprised one district. The Provisional Constitution was then unanimously ratified near midnight on February 8, 1861 and was signed by all present members at noon the day of Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address on February 18, 1861. There are fifty signatures in all, including those of the Texas delegation who were admitted on March 2. The Provisional Constitution was nullified with the ratification of the permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America on March 11, 1861.

The framers of the Provisional Constitution used the Constitution of the United States as a basis for their own, and thus there are many similarities. There were also several noticeable differences, including the aforementioned changes, as well as a clause which allowed congress to use a two-thirds vote to declare the president unable to perform his duties. Article IV permitted congress to amend the constitution with another two-thirds vote, while Article VI granted congress the power to admit other states into the confederacy. And in their haste, the Committee of Twelve neglected to include important features such as a ratification process and decided to omit any mention of controversial issues regarding slavery, and tariffs. Such issues were to be decided in the permanent Constitution.

But the most significant difference from the United States Constitution was that under the Provisional Constitution, the Provisional Confederate Congress was a unicameral legislature, that is, it had only one chamber. This was changed to the more familiar bicameral legislature in the Permanent Constitution.

Perhaps the most notable of the neglected issues was slavery. Given the importance of slavery to the secessionist movement of the south, the issue is mentioned rather sparingly in the provisional constitution. The constitution only mentions slavery twice: once in the prohibition of the slave trade, and again in a constitutional guarantee of the return of fugitive slaves or financial compensation equal to the “value of the slave and all costs and expenses.” This absence of further regulations on slavery reflects, among other things, the complexity and variety of political and moral beliefs among convention members.